Ezra Susser, MD, DrPH is Head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University, and Department Head, Epidemiology of Brain Disorders at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Much of his research has been on the epidemiology of brain disorders especially psychoses. He has studied the interrelationships between homelessness and psychotic disorders; compared psychotic disorders in low and high-income countries; and related prenatal exposures to the risk of schizophrenia in adulthood. Some of his recent work is on the intersection of brain disorders and infectious disease. Dr. Susser has taken an active role in using epidemiology to better understand social inequalities of health by focusing on the health of inner city urban populations. He was formerly director of the Center for Urban Epidemiological Studies at the New York Academy of Medicine. He has taken a leading role in researching and responding to the effects of the World Trade Center attack on the mental health of the city’s population. He has been a key participant in some large-scale efforts to introduce treatment and prevention for HIV/AIDS in Africa and he has advocated for the integration of expertise on brain disorders and mental health into the global campaign against HIV. Dr. Susser has published on the development of epidemiology as a discipline: genetic epidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, the integration of infectious and "chronic" disease epidemiology, and epidemiology more generally. Some of his recent writings call for the integration of public mental health, both nationally and internationally, into the mainstream of public health.